


Our Best Revenge

by Alecto



Series: The Tin Anniversary [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fictober 2019, Fluff, Future Fic, Growing Old Together, M/M, Married Couple, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21683620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alecto/pseuds/Alecto
Summary: "Living well is the best revenge."Seto used to scoff at the adage. Back then, he was young, brazen, and committed to an exit strategy that was destined to crash and burn.
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Series: The Tin Anniversary [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060448
Comments: 12
Kudos: 104





	Our Best Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober Day 13 prompt: “I never knew it could be this way.”

Seto stirred and winced at the thin strip of light that stabbed his vision. Over the blanket cocoon tucked under his arms, he looked out the window they forgot to draw the curtains over last night. Flurries drifted from the gray sky overhead to drape the dormant gardens in white finery. Snow may be a rarity in Domino, but the overcast weather was all the more reason to stay in bed. His partner, however, was bound to disagree once he saw the white landscape.

He huddled deeper into the warm duvet, burying his face in blond tufts to block out the intruding morning light. Lazy Saturday mornings were no longer an oddity. The idea used to chafe him at sixteen. At twenty-five. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he came to appreciate these meandering mornings without responsibilities pawing at his door or demons to chase him out of bed. It must have been a gradual transformation over the decades. 

Sixteen-year-old Seto would be disgusted with this forty-five-year-old him. He’d call him soft and complacent. Maybe he was. Softer, yes, but never complacent. You couldn’t lose the people and things you never had. Sixteen-year-old Seto had his brother, a corporation in radical transition, and seemingly all the world’s weight. Seto still had some of that. But having more friends, more years of lived experiences, and someone to share his life also meant having more to lose.

He tightened his embrace. No matter the age, Kaiba Seto never dealt well with the concept of losing.

The man in his arms snuffled, drawing Seto out of his spiraling thoughts. “M’rnin’," Katsuya’s sleep slurred words tickled his clavicles. He followed up the greeting with a sandpapery nuzzle along Seto’s jaw. “What time izit?”

He made no move to check his phone. Instead, he smoothed a hand over Katsuya’s mussed hair and replied, “Early.”

Katsuya hummed and fell quiet again. Seto waited for Katsuya’s breathing to even out as he fell back to sleep. But the fingertips skating back and forth across his shoulders told him otherwise. He sighed and angled his head to look into Katsuya's face. “Yes?” he asked while arching a sardonic eyebrow that he knew to be barely visible in the dim. 

Katsuya lifted his head, oblivious to the pillow crease adorning his cheek, to better meet Seto’s gaze. His scruff has reached an unacceptable stage, and Seto will force him to shave this morning. Yet when he broke into a dopey smile, Seto couldn’t help the sympathetic twitch of his own lips. The hand on top of Seto’s shoulder slipped low to brace his back and rolled him onto his side for a kiss. 

Seto’s platinum wedding band bumped Katsuya’s nose as he blocked the move with his right hand. He crinkled his nose in disgust. “No, not with that abominable morning breath.”

“Stingy,” whined his husband. “Fine, whatever, I gotta take a leak anyway.”

The bed bounced as Katsuya untangled himself from the covers and sprinted into the ensuite bathroom. Seto snickered. The slap of bare feet against icy tiles was immediately followed by Katsuya’s startled yelp. He always forgot, especially in the wintertime. After the toilet flush came the sound of running water and teeth brushing. The familiar domesticity almost lulled Seto straight back to sleep. More stamping feet and then a draft of cold air stealing under the covers as Katsuya wiggled back into bed. 

Seto stifled a yawn. A cold hand traced the column of his neck before cupping his cheek and drawing him into a soft kiss. Katsuya’s lips were warm and wet. His breath carried the sharp tang of mint. The kiss was over sooner than Seto preferred. Katsuya grasped his right hand though, pulled it out from under the covers, and pressed a kiss to his palm.

“Happy anniversary, Seto,” he muttered as his lips grazed his ring finger next. The platinum warmed under his breath.

Seto’s heart fluttered. The years came flooding back to him in a rush. The way they bumbled through their twenties, unable to express any affections beyond the least damning negatives (“I don’t completely hate you”, “You’re less annoying than you used to be”) and vaguest notions of attachment. Marriage came much later. They were thirty-five and on vacation in Hawaii, throwing caution to the wind and eloping on a mutual dare. They sprang their foreign marriage license on their friends and family, who were more relieved than worried by that point. The media had a field day though. Most were convinced they wouldn’t last a month. Seto snubbed all their doubts and expectations, adopting Katsuya into the Kaiba family registry. 

That was a decade ago. Katsuya never left his side since. His laugh lines grew deeper with every passing year. Once, he drunkenly proclaimed he had to work twice as hard to offset the wrinkles Seto collected from frowning and thinking too hard. Seto found he didn’t mind the idea. Just like how he didn’t mind how Katsuya’s midsection had softened over time.

“C’mon, say something, Seto.” Katsuya’s eyes glowed, basking him in their warmth. “Too stunned by my rugged handsomeness, huh?”

“I never knew it could be this way.” The words dangled off the edge of his tongue, laced with equal parts bitterness and wonder. He couldn’t give them voice though.

Even though he couldn’t say it, Katsuya understood. They were two creatures cut from the same cloth, riddled with souvenirs given too freely by cruel and domineering father figures. When caught up in their hot-headed youth, their respective futures always seemed a perpetual blank-slate. They had no healthy examples of adulthood to model their futures on. What did it mean to age gracefully when so many of the adults in their lives abandoned them or met premature grisly ends?

But now? Their combined future stretched ahead, furnished with date nights, bickering, and lazy mornings in bed. 

They would outlive all the ghosts, demons, and monsters that tried to rob them of these opportunities. Maybe out of spite at first, but no longer. Now Seto lives in spite of them. 

He reached up and tucked an errant strand behind Katsuya’s ear. “Don’t get so cocky over ten years. Nothing short of forty will impress me.”

A wide grin, as stunning as the sun rising over Hawaii’s turquoise ocean, dawned across his husband’s face. 

“Challenge accepted.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wedding rings aren't considered a big deal in Japanese culture. It is generally acceptable for married couples to not wear their rings in their day-to-day lives. For women, it can be because they want to avoid intrusive questions about their marriage (like “when are you going to have children”) or to avoid stigma in their professional lives. Others also choose not to wear their rings in public as acts of humility and not wanting to “rub” their martial status in other people’s faces.
> 
> Kaijou headcanon time! 
> 
> Jounouchi generally doesn’t wear his ring: “Cuz it’s like super nice, and Kaiba spent a lotta money on them.” He doesn’t want to scuff it by accident. He keeps his wedding band in a box for safekeeping.
> 
> But Kaiba… Well, he’s Kaiba. He never takes his off unless he’s about to do something like soldering. He absolutely wants to remind everyone that “Screw your rules, I’m married. I don’t care if this country hasn’t legalized same-sex marriage yet. Now look upon my awesome hubby and despair.”


End file.
